‘NIP/ Tuck,” the cutting-edge drama about a couple of stressed-out plastic surgeons, is going where no TV show has gone before – being nice to Scientology.

Both Hollywood – where discussion of the secretive, New Age religion is usually avoided – and the show’s fans are buzzing about the series’ latest turn.

One of the show’s characters, the impressionable young Matt, is beginning to take Scientology seriously – thanks to another of the show’s more colorful characters, the reformed porn star, Kimber.

What has people talking is that the show does not make fun of the religion made famous by Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

No “South Park” treatment or late-show lampoons for “Nip/Tuck.” “You read so much in the press about certain famous people who are Scientologists, but the media pushes it aside as a joke,” the show’s creator, Ryan Murphy, told the Los Angeles Times over the weekend. (The idea of treating Scientology down the middle was so novel, Hollywood’s hometown paper devoted an 1,800-word article to the plot twist.) “Clearly, it’s not a joke for millions of people,” Murphy said.

“I’m not for it. I’m not against it. I was just curious as to what it is, what they believe in, and how it changes life and how it destroys life.

“Our culture is geared toward satirizing and making fun of people’s choices,” he said. “You would expect us to do that, but the fact that we’re not is making people sit up and pay attention a little bit.” In the epsiode that airs tomorrow night on FX, Matt and Kimber go through a ritual sauna together in order to get “clear” – a term Scientologists use to mean freeing the body and spirit of negativity.

“South Park” made headlines earlier this year when it was stopped from re-airing an episode about Cruise that made fun of Scientology.

Word was that the star himself demanded the episode be shelved by Comedy Central – which is owned by the same studio, Paramount, that produced his successful “Mission Impossible” movie series.